Did anyone here about this? I heard a blurb that the City of Baltimore made a pitch to have it as a floating museum in the harbor, but the Navy deemed the harbor too shallow. And, instead of trying to find it a better home, they were just going to sink it? What’s the SD on this? - Jinx
There’s nothing about it on the Tuna Surprise’s website. Considering the fact that the recent news section of the website seems to get updated daily, if there were anything to this story I think it would be there, too.
Considering the date (4/2) I suspect the OP’s story might be a left over April Fool’s story.
ETA: Which doesn’t even address the whole difficulty in keeping a decommed reactor plant conditioned after the ship is decommed. It’s been done for the Nautilus, but I would wonder whether they’d want to do the same thing for the Enterprise with her eight reactor plants.
Jinx wants to know where our nuclear wessels are.
Do you mean the WWII carrier Enterprise, the one with the “beehive” superstructure? Or the current USS Enterprise (CVN - 65)?
They’re across the bay . . . in Alemeda.
Support from http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/navycvn21.htm
Here is the Big E’s official Website: http://www.enterprise.navy.mil/
Jim
According to Wiki CV6, the WWII Enterprise, was sold as scrap in 1958, and the scrapping was complete by May 1960. So, I think it’s got to be the CVN-65.
Here she is at home in Norfolk. She is the one in the middle.
The what? I think you have the two confused. The WWII Enterprise was a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1938 and finally scrapped. It was Adm. Halsey’s flagship when he commanded that carrier division, and fought in every major campaign of the Pacific war. It certainly did not have anything remotely resembling a bee-hive superstructure; its “island” was to starboard with bridge forward and single stack aft.
The current Enterprise started life with a decidely unusual superstructure with a domed cap above the bridge area and flat antenna (or radar?) arrays underneath. A 2001 picture shows her with a more conventional superstructure; that may be the source of the confusion. It’s the same ship, though.
The City of Baltimore was interested in the USS Forrestal. CV-59 as a museum ship. ALas fund raising failed and the Forrestal ,(now in mothballs in Rhode Island) is to be towed out to see to be sunk. Two other carriers have been recently sunk, The USS Oriskany (CV-34) is a reef off Pensacola, the USS America (CV-66) was sunk in weapons tests in the Atlantic.
There was interest in saving the WWII-era Enterprise as a museum ship, but it eventually came to aught.
That is a huge shame. IIRC, she was the most decorated ship in US History. I believe the New Jersey is second and did it over a much longer period.
Jim
You are correct, I had my Big E history confused, it was the current one that had the beehive originally.
I am fairly familiar with what she looks like now, since I spent most of 1992-1994 aboard her.
I bet he’s thinking of the carrier, John F. Kennedy.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/23/america/NA-GEN-US-Kennedy-Decommissioning.php
Obviously untrue. If anything, it would be sold for scrap. There’s a lot of valuable recyclable metal there!
I think you mean Alameda.
There is indeed. However, there are several problems:
No US company will scrap the ship. In spite of the massive amount of materials that can be salvaged, it is not economically feasible for an American company. The last carrier scrapped was the Coral Sea, and the company tried to jettison the hulk to a foreign country many times without success.
That leads to the next point: the US will not sell a capital ship to a foreign country for scrapping. The Navy won an injunction in the aforementioned Coral Sea situation, and it remains a law that will certainly not be repealed. Even a 40-year-old aircraft carrier hulk is usable by other countries that lack a carrier, and the potential for third-party resale is real.
There’s also the problem of disposing of a nuclear aircraft carrier, which we have never done before. We’ve done many submarines and smaller ships, but not a ship the size of an aircraft carrier.
Chances are they’ll remove the reactors and either donate it or sink it.
Warning: reviving a zombie. (A simple search suggests this might be the most relevant existing thread.)
The current USS Enterprise was officially decommissioned on Feb. 3, 2017 after being deactivated in 2012. More on the tear down here.
The next USS Enterprise is scheduled to be operational in 2025.
No bloody A,B,C,D or E!
My FIL was a plank owner. He’s pretty bummed even though he’s admitted the eight-reactor design was something of a nightmare to manage.